Unreal Engine 4: The Complete Beginner's Course

Learn Video Game Development & How To Design a Game From Scratch Using UE4

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About This Course

Course Description

Learn game development using the industry-leading 3D game design software the pros use, the Unreal Engine 4. This award-winning engine is used to create many of today’s top games.

Learn Video Game Development with this Unreal Engine 4 Course for Beginners

Projects & Levels

Actor Types

Meshes & Brushes

Lighting

Materials

Characters & Input

Collisions

Blueprint Logic & Data

User Interfaces

Audio

Develop Games Using Cutting-Edge Game Design Software and Run Them on a State-of-the-Art 3D Game Engine

The Unreal Engine has won the “Best Game Engine” award several times from various organizations, including the Develop Industry Excellence Awards and Game Developer Magazine.

The Unreal Engine has been used to develop many blockbuster games and game series including Borderlands, Gears of War, BioShock, Mass Effect, and hundreds more.

For years, the Unreal Engine was only affordable for large companies, but starting in 2015, Unreal Engine 4 is now completely free to use, as long as you agree to pay Epic Games 5% of your game sales.

Learn Unreal Engine 4 in this Video Game Design Course

In this course, you will learn the fundamentals of game development using the Unreal Engine 4 through a series of 62 lectures and over 8 hours of content.

The course will start from scratch and programming knowledge is not required, so anyone with basic computer skills can jump in and begin their Unreal Engine 4 training!

The first part of the course will help you get the Unreal Engine 4 up and running and will introduce you to the basic concepts of game development using the Engine. Next, you will learn all the skills you need to craft beautiful environments to stage your games in. Then, you will learn how to script logic for your games so you can define game rules and behaviors, keep track of data such as health and inventory, and create playable characters. You will learn about collisions and damage, key concepts for any action game. You will learn how to create user interfaces using the UMG Editor, so you can add things like menus, load screens, and HUDs to your game. And finally, you will learn how audio works within the Engine so you can add music, dialogue, and sound effects to your game.

Upon completion of the course, you will have the skills necessary to translate ideas for games into playable games that use environments you sculpt and logic that you define, and you will understand how to make a game in Unreal Engine 4.

What are the requirements?

Recommended: Desktop PC with Windows 7 (or later) 64-bit or a Mac with Mac OS X 10.9.2 or later

Recommended: 8 GB RAM

Recommended: Quad-core Intel or AMD processor

Recommended: DirectX 11 compatible video card

Unreal Engine 4 will run on desktops and laptops with specifications under these, but performance may be affected

What am I going to get from this course?

Learn game development, create games, and run them on the Unreal Engine 4

Build realistic looking environments for games to take place in

Define custom inputs and movements to control characters

Script logic to define gameplay without needing to know how to code

What is the target audience?

This video game development course is for absolute beginners who are interested in making games & learning how to design a game from scratch using UE4

Learn the basics of Projects and how to create a new project. Learn about the Epic Games Launcher, Unreal Project Browser, the difference between "Maximum Quality" and "Scalable 3D or 2D", Starter Content, and immersive mode (full screen).

Learn what a Level is in the context of the Unreal Engine. Learn how to create a new level. Learn the difference between choosing "Default" and "Empty Level". Learn how to open and save levels. Learn about Assets.

Learn the difference between the Unreal Engine and the Unreal Editor. Learn the different parts of the Level Editor - Viewport, Toolbar, Content Browser, Modes Panel, World Outliner, and Details Panel. Learn how to customize the interface.

Learn how to place Actors into a Level. Learn what the five modes of the Modes Panel are. Learn about the different tabs of Place Mode - Basic, Recently Placed, Lights, Visual Effects, BSP, Volumes, and All Classes.

Learn the three main ways to navigate within the Viewport - mouse navigation, WASD navigation, and Maya navigation. Learn how to focus the camera on an object. Learn how to tumble, orbit, dolly, zoom, track, and pan. Learn how to adjust camera speed.

Learn how to use snapping to perfectly align your Actors with one another within your Level. Learn the difference between Surface Snapping, Grid Snapping, Rotation Snapping, and Scale Snapping. Learn about the "Rotate to Surface Normal" and "Surface Offset" settings. Learn about snap sizes.

Learn about Immersive Mode (fullscreen). Learn three of the different View Modes - Lit, Unlit, and Wireframe. Learn the difference between a perspective view and an orthographic view. Learn about the Show Flags setting, Game View, and piloting Actors within the Viewport.

Learn about the lock button in the Details Panel. Learn how to quickly find properties within the Details Panel. Learn about the Property Matrix. Learn about the various View Options of the Details Panel such as “Show Only Modified Properties”, “Show All Advanced Details”, and “Show Child on Category Match”.

Learn how to move, rotate, and scale Actors using the Transform category of the Details panel. Learn the difference between transforming relative to an Actor’s parent and transforming relative to the world. Learn the difference between the “Static”, "Stationary" and “Moveable” mobility settings.

Learn about Materials, Textures, and Elements. Learn about the Surface Materials, Geometry, and Surface Properties categories in the Details panel. Learn about the “Select All Adjacent Surfaces” property. Learn about the U-axis and V-axis.

Learn about variables, and how to create and edit them using the My Blueprint tab. Learn what data types are and about different data types such as Boolean, Byte, Integer, Float, Text, String, Name, Vector, Rotator, and Transform. Learn about the different properties of variables such as Variable Name, Variable Type, Tooltip, Private, Category, Slider Range, Value Range, and Replication.

Learn what function are and how to create them. Learn about the Return node and Append node. Learn about different properties of functions in the Unreal Engine such as Description, Category, Keywords, Compact Node Title, and Access Specifier. Learn the difference between public vs private functions. Learn the difference between pure vs impure functions.

Learn about Game Modes and Game Mode properties such as Use Seamless Travel, Pauseable, Start Players as Spectators, Delayed Start, Minimum Respawn Delay, Default Player Name, Player State Life Span, and Start With Tick Enabled.

Learn about the Event Hit node and its many pins such as My Comp, Other, Self Moved, Hit Location, Hit Normal, Normal Impulse, and Hit pin. Learn about the Apply Damage node and its pins such as Damaged Actor, Base Damage, and Damage Type Class. Learn about the Event AnyDamage node.

Learn about the Button Widget and its properties including Style, Image, Image Size, Draw As, Normal Padding, and Pressed Padding. Learn about the three events of the Button Widget - OnClicked, OnPressed, and OnReleased.

Learn about the Uniform Grid Panel and its properties including Slot Padding, Minimum Desired Slot Width, and Minimum Desired Slot Height. Learn about the Grid Panel and its properties such as Row Span, Column Span, Layer, and Nudge.

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Instructor Biography

David Nixon is a professional software developer and amateur game developer who holds a degree in Computer Science from Florida Atlantic University. He started his career developing websites and providing SEO services for companies nationwide. He then dove into the world of mobile gaming, developing the game Puzzlers. Recently, he worked as a web developer for a major SaaS company.